Posted by Joshua on Monday, November 5th, 2007

Jackson Diehl, deputy editorial editor at the Washington Post, in his article, All Still Quiet on the Syria Bombing, praises the US and Israel for the restraint they have so far shown in not bragging about bombing Syria on Sept 6 that Diehl calls "that remarkable event — which was both an audacious act of preemption and a revelation of an apparent Syrian bomb program."

Diehl's purpose in the article is to support Reps. Peter Hoekstra and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who demanded in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed that "every member of Congress be briefed on this incident, and as soon as possible." The two republican House members are ranking minority members on the intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees and famous for their partisan politics.

Beneath all the neocon spin and posturing, however, Diehl is warning that if US politicians don't start spinning now, they may be blind sided by Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who Diehl calls "its freelancing director." Diehl warns:

So far the Bush administration has refused to cooperate with ElBaradei, who has all but openly sided with Iran in its attempt to deflect U.N. orders to freeze its uranium enrichment. Having debunked U.S. claims about a reborn Iraqi nuclear program in early 2003, ElBaradei would be certain to seize on any ambiguities in the Israeli and U.S. evidence about the Syrian reactor. If he raised doubts that the project was intended to produce plutonium, both Olmert and the Bush administration would be damaged.

Diehl does not blush or pause before berating Baradei for "dubunking US claims about a reborn Iraqi nuclear program in early 2003."

This one line says it all. Diehl is blind and unable to learn from past mistakes. That is why he tries to discredit Baradei before he visits Syria and before he can "damage the Olmert and Bush administrations" by "raising doubts that the project was intended to produce plutonium." Had Washington been willing to listen to Baradei in 2003, the US would have been spared untold damage to its prestige and soldiers. Diehl is not perturbed by the notion of hurting America; he only worries about hurting the Olmert and Bush administrations.

Comments (9)

Joshua … in 30 years … when you are 70 … you will have a lot to teach about this administration and what really happened … but I wonder who will end up being “the winner” … THAT will determine what version ends up being the official story of the 2000-2008 years.. with the unprecedented intensity of lies and frequency of disinformation campaigns … History will tell a very different story depending who wins.

…with the unprecedented intensity of lies and frequency of disinformation campaigns…

It was no “lie” or “disinformation campaign” that:

1.) Middle East regimes have been supporting Islamic terrorism for decades, with the full support of all the Alex’s and Professors of Middle East studies of the world.

2.) Saddam Hussein’s regime threatened Israel while forwarding his nuclear program at Osirak.

3.) The Baathist regime of Iraq killed thousands of Iraqis from Halabja using chemical weapons.

4.) Saddam Hussein started a war with Kuwait. Coalition forces had to kick Saddam out of Kuwait and ten of thousands of Iraqis had to die due to Hussein’s stupidity. Unfortunately, the Iraqi Baathist regime was left intact to kill tens of thousands more. The Arb street didn’t complain.

5.) During the Gulf war, Israel stayed out of the war while bearing the brunt of 39 Iraqi scud missiles. Saudi Arabia also was bombed by Scud missiles.

6.) After the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein failed to comply with 17 UNSC resolutions over 12 years, culminating in a unanimous UNSC resolution 1441, threatening “serious consequences” if he continued to disregard the UN.

7.) The Syrian government tried to bomb an El Al commercial airliner in Great Britain. The UK ended diplomatic relations with Syria.

8.) The Syrian government continues to kill opposition leaders in Lebanon and arm terrorists in Lebanon against UN resolutions.

9.) Iran arms and funds terrorism in Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, etc.

10.) Middle east regimes continue to promote terrorism in their media and in their educational systems.

If Jackson Diehl “goes over the deep end”, I’d say we need more editors in the western media to do the same.

Why do you skip the 8 years Iran-Iraq war where iranians were gazed by Saddam Hussein who got his WMD from europeans companies with the approval of the US, eager to reverse the Iran Islamic revolution.
Syria was the only country that sided with Iran during this war.

The US and its allies are now paying the price of their ill fated blind eye on this action against Iran. Historically, it has been the US policy to boost a dictator and support him to crush US ennemies or countries reluctant to be “obedient” and then dump the dictator when he is no longer needed. Then the US is surprised by the hatred and suspicions they have generated and that has been fueling terror acts against US interests and its allies in the region.

Why do you skip the 8 years Iran-Iraq war where iranians were gazed by Saddam Hussein who got his WMD from europeans companies with the approval of the US, eager to reverse the Iran Islamic revolution. Syria was the only country that sided with Iran during this war.

I skip the 8 years of mass murder during the Iran-Iraq war, in the same fashion that Chile skipped over the WW2 and the Holocaust.
What’s your excuse? What was the Arab world’s excuse. Aren’t they closer to the conflict?

Yet, I do not deny that the Iran-Iraq war happened and that hundreds of thousands met their untimely deaths. On the contrary, this conflict not only showed the world what brutal regimes were fighting this war, but that during this time, international Islamic terrorism slowed down to a screetching halt.

Of course initially, the west was helping Saddam to thwart the Iranian theocracy (probably due to the hostage crisis when the holy Iranians held US embassy workers for over a year). Later, western support for Iraq faded due to Saddam’s thirst for power, Kuwait’s oil fields, and WMD.

The US and its allies are now paying the price of their ill fated blind eye on this action against Iran. Historically, it has been the US policy to boost a dictator and support him to crush US ennemies or countries reluctant to be “obedient” and then dump the dictator when he is no longer needed. Then the US is surprised by the hatred and suspicions they have generated and that has been fueling terror acts against US interests and its allies in the region.

Why-Discuss,

I beg to differ. The US has satisfactory relations with numerous Islamic states that do not fund and arm terrorist organizations. But alas, the US, unfortunately, is not the only country to “boost a dictator and support him”.

I always find it amusing when Arabs point their fingers at me with this statement, when almost every Arab kisses the feet of their favorite dictator on a daily basis: Arafat, Assad, Abbas, Nasrallah, bin Laden, Saddam, Kaddafi, al Sadr, Ahmadinejad, the list goes on. Who is your favorite Arab dictator Why-Discuss? I think we should print up a deck of cards showing the forum’s favorite 52 Arab dicators. Maybe that’s already been done.

It seems now that Bush Jr. is president, we’re actually entertaining fewer dictators than we used to. I call that refreshing. I know you want the US to entertain the Syrian dictator, but that would be so very confusing to both you and I. Don’t you think?

We need more sane people, not more lunatics and blood thirsty insecure Israelis and neocons.

You are supporting the mentality of those who are taking us TODAY to WWIII because … because in the 80’s Saddam did bad things?

I won’t link for the 10th time the Wikipedia article about the second hypothesis of the Hindawi affair in the 80’s … the one that Chirac accepted as quite possible .. that the Israeli Intelligence hired the Syrian agent Hindawi as a double agent … if you are not able to remember, or if you do not want to remember … then you are delusional.

Basically you are refusing the easy way of making Israel more secure .. by reaching a peaceful settlement with the Syrians (and the Lebanese)based on UN resolutions … and instead you keep making excuses for the strategy of the killers … you want to destroy the MIddle East in order to feel more secure without having to give back the Golan hieights to its owners you stole it form

How moral of you to support more killing for your own selfish materialistic reasons!!

Instead of supporting sane policies on Israel’s part .. you run to Wikipedia to find excuses like “oh But in Sudan they kill many people too .. why can’t Israel and America do that?”

Right Alex, you support a tyrant and oppressor and also think you are moral. There will be peace in the middle east, but first the tyrants have to go. It is not the US or Israel that need to change. It is the regime in Syria.

Most of the dictatorships in the arab world and in south america as the result of years of imperialism by europe and recently by the US.
Dictators are not always the ones who appear tough. I consider many allies of the US as “disguised” dictatorships with a soft face: Mobarak, half a century in power in a so called ‘democratic’ system. Saudi Arabia ruling family where women can work, cant drive and where there is no democratic elections and who bred most terrorists in the arab world. Pakistan where we see the result of the blind US support. Jordan, where the king wants to show a face of democracy in with highly controlled medias etc…
These are the friends of the USA and they flirt with Bush and Cheney, until when I wonder, until there is a coup and an islamic governement takes over.
Unfortunately the US highest priority has and is still the control of the oil ressources to support the US industrial development and they will do whatever is necessary, using all kinds of ‘grand moral” pretexts to keep that control, even supporting dictators and calling them ‘allies’ ( remember the shah of Iran etc..).
Any hegemonic power has no moral, just interests.

now it is oil–soon it will be water and food – politics are the dark waters of humanity and religion is the moral justification for atrocities. the details are sad — Machiavelli is a little boy compared to what goes in the middle east power play and alliances. when 5% of the world’s population uses 50% of its energy –something is wrong posturing and justification will crumble in the face of time. learn from the past and look to the future — what separates the two is a line of the present that is moving constantly